


we've made home of war

by everythingispoetry



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aftermath, Friendship, Gen, Missing Scene, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-06-09 10:03:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6901465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingispoetry/pseuds/everythingispoetry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Two hearts singing in unison, even if the world doesn’t understand their language </i> or <i>you would collapse under the weight of peace.</i></p><p>Bucky might be the only person who can talk some sense into Captain America, you see. Perhpas this is why fate has kept him alive so long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we've made home of war

**we’ve made home of war**

The answer is obvious, to you. You have achieved a certain clarity of mind over the past few months, save those few unfortunate hours following the meeting with Zemo during which you looked but didn’t see, you listened but didn’t hear, and you touched, you touched delicately the world around you but you didn’t _feel_. But you’ve jumped past all the walls that had been erected in your mind over decades (walls of ice, pain, and lies) and now you know the shortcuts. You remember well. You made that damn plum crisp seven times over before it tasted exactly like it should, exactly like it did back in the other world.

You tell Steve.

Steve wears the Roger’s expression of _none of your business_ outside, and spends insane amount of time staring at his tablet screen or the jungle, seated outside on the rooftop, sunglasses hiding his eyes. A weak spot. It takes a lot of effort to include the eyes in the play, you know. His face has been so painfully open when you are alone behind closed door; now it says _outraged_ , just as expected.

‘You don’t have to do it, Bucky.’

You cock your head with mocking curiosity and wait for elaboration. Steve’s stare is blue and piercing, always so stubborn.

‘You are safe here.’

 _We are safe here,_ you correct in your mind, and just barely crook your lips into a smile; the idiot Rogers would always forget himself. A fugitive, see how that suits you, pal. But it’s still not what Bucky is waiting for.  It takes Steve a while (you have sniper’s patience, and coffee).

‘You can’t do it, Bucky.’

‘Technically you are correct,’ you admit, nodding diligently. ‘Appropriate equipment would be necessary and such does not exist.’

 _Within our reach_ , you amend in your mind; there are still some cryo tanks somewhere around the world, scattered between HYDRA facilities. Most of them you have taken care of, as well as their security, but the Winter Soldier has been serviced at oh so many places over decades.

‘That’s not at all what I meant,’ Steve scowls; the worried expression creates funny wrinkles on his forehead,. ‘ _Bucky_.’

‘Saying my name, are we now, Rogers,’ you tease easily. The coffee is finished, your flesh hand cradling the still-warm cup. Without the metal arm the imbalance is strange, even though it’s been a few days; without the additional weight attached to your body you feel like you’re flying. ‘I reckon I should. With a clarity of mind, or whatever you want me to declare, deep down your silly self.’

‘Bucky,’ Steve mutters and something in his tone, in the heaviness of those two syllables, makes you wipe the smirk off your face. As if he were pleading. Then Steve says something in a whisper, and you shiver, you’re in a jungle, hot and so stuffy that you could slice the air with one of your combat knives, and you shiver.

‘Don’t go.’

You hear, _don’t go again, don’t leave me again._ But you are not going anywhere, you won’t be, literally you will be stuck unmoving and unconscious in one place until due date.

‘Steve,’ you say, and it makes the damn Rogers’s head shoot up, his gaze piercing your soul, you swear. ‘I remember everything now, right? We spoke about this. I remember. All those years, I never noticed decades passing. It was like being underwater, and now we’re back to the surface, and the world above has changed. And you _literally_ were at the bottom of a damn ocean, Stevie. You’ve been out for a few years now and you must know this is not our place.’

 _Yet the stars above the surface tell the same fortune, soldier_ , you think. Always do, you agree. You can blame that special sort of sentimentality on spending too much time in Russia, it seems to seep into a human being through osmosis.

‘I know,’ Steve says, nodding sharply. He is not lying, you can tell (you always could). You know they must have tried to make him talk, make him adapt, therapy and such, but this very moment is a sole proof that nothing in the world can change Steve Rogers’ mind. You are both standing in a spacious room of a Wakandan palace after Steve has left everything he was offered behind for a memory of what he could have had. It’s not even hope, you don’t suppose, neither of you hopes for anything anymore. You wish for an immersive distraction and you wish to build a home in the chaos, anticipation, adrenaline, _conviction_. Purpose. Build a home of war.

‘You’ve been frozen, and you’ve never known peace. I’ve been at war ever since, secret or not. We don’t know how not to fight, Stevie, it’s the only thing we’re good at.’

‘Right, jerk,’ Steve chuckles; you like when he does it, and when he laughs, it’s more like having the obstinate idiot back, rather than the sullen hero. Steve is good at brooding, you cannot deny that, but it’s only his second greatest talent – after his smart mouth. He’s also great at the serious captain face, which he is doing again. So.

‘If I decide on staying awake – if we decide on going now, we will be running away, maybe forever. Is that what you want? We could, I am not saying no, and I’m sure your righteous self would be happy to do that if you had enough justification, and you would wear that pained _I must make it right_ expression until the end of days,’ you cannot fail to tease Steve about it, it’s been famous for generations. Then you suddenly remember one more circumstance, something you haven’t considered in this context before, and you add, ‘God knows how long that will take, for supersoldiers like us.’

‘We’ve missed our chance at re-learning life, haven’t we,’ Steve pretends to ask, but it could never be a question. ‘There is no time now to watch baseball and commute to your nine-to-five, or pick up girls, or go to the movies.’

You nod, and nod, and nod again, and you think _damn Russians for their melancholy_ as you say, ‘We’ve missed our epoch, Stevie. The only reminiscence we have – and will have – of our real home, apart from each other’s silly faces, is the fighting. Too bad when it ends we have nothing to go back to, so admit it, this is why you didn’t want to sign, right? Sitting idle has never worked out for you.’

‘You know me,’ Rogers agrees. ‘And there is always _something_.’

‘Things you can’t un-know, reflexes you can’t unlearn. Intel you wish you could forget.’

‘There are some hints Thor dropped, and things Vision said, and all of the post-SHIELD dealings, all those changed humans we have seen, Loki and the stone, the fleet Stark saw before–’

‘There is a war coming,’ you interrupt; the list is never-ending. And everyone is involved, silently and invisibly, a revolution simmering right underneath the surface, ready to erupt any minute. ‘One unlike ever before. And when it comes, it is our responsibility.’

‘You understand,’ Steve smiles. You are talking about war and he smiles, of course he would (and he did choose you over everything, so you smile back). ‘You always have.’

‘It’s just the language of outdated smartasses, which we undeniably are,’ you comment.

You sit in silence for a few minutes. Your mug has gone cold, and Steve is finished with his coffee, too, and now he’s looking at his lap, either because he’s concocting something and doesn’t want you to read it in his face before he says the words, or because he’s trying to avoid looking at the jagged line of your left, blaming himself, vividly realizing your disability, possibly both.

‘Hey Steve,’ you say, and he looks up. Both. You make sure your words are soft and delicate, so quiet that most people wouldn’t make them out. ‘I know it’s been pretty twisted, even since I fell. It’s been so long. Now we’ve been thrown into here, but – we will be okay, pal. In a world like this, a world that speaks different language, our purpose is a burden. But it’s okay. We go on. What is the worst thing that could happen to us.’

Maybe you would collapse under the weight of peace (if it ever comes).

‘You will leave me,’ Steve reminds stubbornly, but you are patient. His voice wavers slightly and you know he’s only repeating it because it feels safe.

‘Not for long.’

‘Still.’

‘Not for long, Stevie,’ you mutter, and it just seems a bit funny how you, the brainwashed assassin, have to comfort Captain America, how you get to hold him up. Push him. ‘Let me have some time, and let yourself. You have things to do. You will be busy. Go pick up your strays. Go make up with Stark, you do want to be on the same side when everything goes to hell, since he owns like half of America, and controls half of the world. Sulk all you want and hide all you need, but drop them all a visit, break them out of prison, make sure they are in the same boat because they will be needed. They don’t know yet but they will. And when you need me, too, I will be ready.’

‘I just got you back, Buck. This is… you are the only familiar thing in the damn universe.’

‘And back at you – but bear with me just a bit longer. In the meantime, I am useless to everyone, until we figure out those trigger words. You have all those people buttering you up, fugitive or not – find a way, I dare you. Rogers.’

Steve doesn’t seem to appreciate your brash words but does appear to comprehend.

‘It makes sense. You get it?’ you ask, just to make sure; you must be sure.

Steve nods.

‘I will get everything ready, so you can have it easy,’ he allows the annoying smirk onto his face. _We’re getting there_ , you think. ‘I just want you here, Buck. I doing get to be selfish often.’

‘You will have me basically forever – unless we kick the bucket, and that should prove hard to do,’ you say.

You sit in silence again, and you can’t stop thinking, a little voice at the back of your head, how quiet the place is, with nothing but a soft song of the jungle outside. You’ve spend almost all of your life in cities, or shooting things. The silence is calming.

You only allow yourself few more whispers, so quiet that Steve has to lean closer.

‘You are part of my home, because my home isn’t a physical place, pal. It’s a state. We have been on this Earth for almost a hundred years, yet I haven’t been home for decades. Home is when I know I am in the right place. Next to your dumb self. Wherever that might take me.’

Steve meets your eyes. You don’t need any more words.

When they need you, they will forget everything you’ve done as Winter Soldier, if not forgive, dreaming of surviving; it’s worth it waiting to see them beg.

Later, you go find T’Challa on the other end of the building; you stay back, leaning against the doorframe, playing the game of _looking more comfortable than I actually am_ , with a famous flirting smile glued onto your face. Steve goes ahead and stops in the middle of a vast almost-empty room, with the king sitting by his lonely desk. T’Challa looks up, meeting your first your eyes, and then Steve’s, and making a _speak now_ gesture at them.

Steve clears his throat and very deliberately doesn’t look at you (he almost turned around to do so, you noticed the twitch of muscles). A shiver runs down your spine, and you are not sure if it’s anticipation or dread. Then Steve asks, his voice sharp and sure.

‘How long will it take you to build a cryo tank?’

When he needs you, Steve will come. You will be ready.

**Author's Note:**

> I am bored with poor!Bucky. Badass!Bucky is much better. And I swear by my feeling that they all know far more than they let on... I might be persuaded by the universe to write some more stories these days, if you ever wondered. So, perhaps, see you soon.  
> I hope you did enjoy.


End file.
